The happiness of the Danes can easily be explained by 10 cultural rules. Jante Law has ten simple rules and they are all about the happy acceptance of being average. And, it seems that the idea of jante has a big part to play in the smiling Danish faces.
The Law of Jante is the description of a pattern of group behaviour towards individuals within Nordic countries that negatively portrays and criticises individual success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate.
The Jante Law as a concept was created by the Dano-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose, who, in his novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning krysser sitt spor, 1933, English translation published in the USA in 1936), identified the Law of Jante as ten rules.
There are ten rules in the law as defined by Sandemose, all expressive of variations on a single theme and usually referred to as a homogeneous unit: You are not to think you’re anyone special or that you’re better than us.
The 10 rules of Jante Law:
Rule #1: You’re not to think you are anything special.
Rule #2: You’re not to think you are as good as we are.
Rule #3: You’re not to think you are smarter than we are.
Rule #4: You’re not to imagine yourself better than we are.
Rule #5: You’re not to think you know more than we do.
Rule #6: You’re not to think you are more important than we are.
Rule #7: You’re not to think you are good at anything.
Rule #8: You’re not to laugh at us.
Rule #9: You’re not to think anyone cares about you.
Rule #10: You’re not to think you can teach us anything.
These ten principles or commandments are often claimed to form the “Jante’s Shield” of the Scandinavian people.
In the book, the Janters who transgress this unwritten ‘law’ are regarded with suspicion and some hostility, as it goes against the town’s communal desire to preserve harmony, social stability and uniformity.
An eleventh rule recognised in the novel as ‘the penal code of Jante’ is: Perhaps you don’t think we know a few things about you?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
Happiness Quotes:
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. – Dalai Lama
Happiness is a function of accepting what is. – Werner Erhard
Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. – Henry David Thoreau
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; this conviction the blind have. – Surinder Mehta
Happiness depends upon ourselves – Aristotle
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot. – Josh Billings
Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times – Aeschylus
Love is trembling happiness. – Kahlil Gibran